Lea Lin Teutenberg keeps following the colourfully dressed young people, men and women as they do their laps on the wooden oval in front of her eyes. A light breeze wafts through the cool indoor cycling centre in Kaarst-Büttgen in the Lower Rhine region, triggered by the athletes circling below. Lea Lin Teutenberg is already wearing her long sports gear. "It all started here," says the 24-year-old, "I was always here as a child, watching my dad at the races. Now I often train here. It's something special." She is about to push her track bike through the gate and take careful steps down into the indoor area, where her father Lars and her brother Tim Torn will also be rolling onto the track this Sunday. The youngest generation of a remarkable racing bike family will then continue on their way under the watchful eyes of their parents and prepare for new challenges.
The Teutenbergs: Great importance in cycling
Here on the Lower Rhine, in the pre-winter ambience, it's all about goals that can be approached by travelling in circles and looking back at the past. It sounds philosophical, but the encounter with the Teutenberg family certainly raises big questions. What is certain is that the Teutenberg name has great significance for cycling in this country, which stems from the past. But it is also almost certain that the family will be important for the future of the sport in this country.
When Lea Lin, surnamed Lin, and Tim Torn, surnamed Tim, stand together with their father and mother in the sports centre, their deceased grandfather is also in the room, so to speak. The hall also harbours memories of the Tour de France, world records and great encounters. Overarching everything are big goals for the coming season, and then a quote from the founder of this cycling dynasty rings out again and again: "The journey is the reward." This is the latest chapter in the story, which has already been told several times in TOUR and expanded with new chapters.
Father Lars and his children have planned two and a half hours of training for today. They are not alone. The former professional known as a material specialist is organising a training course for track riders from VfR Büttgen on this day. "Some of them are still at the very beginning of Madison riding, it's all about the basics," says the 53-year-old veteran, who has competed in 92 six-day races in a decade and a half as a professional rider. The man with the short, brown hair can explain how to take turns, how to give your partner momentum. He explains the details to the juniors in front of him very calmly, very directly and very seriously, pushing the standing bodies of the young people back and forth in front of him, while his two children rush around the track in the background, led by a derny. The father signals to the driver of the vehicle with his right hand, turning an imaginary gas tap. The aim is to train, not to roll. The session should be worthwhile for everyone, not just the beginners. "I think it's important to spread our knowledge as widely as possible," says Teutenberg senior. He seems fully committed to the cause.
Lars Teutenberg: 82.6 kilometres in 60 minutes
Lars Teutenberg has plenty of knowledge. He is known as a tinkerer, mastermind and material fetishist, but that's not all. It's always about optimisation, efficiency and saving energy," he says. "That's what I try to show my children. How they can save energy with a mixture of the best material and the right behaviour in the race compared to the competition. That's the path to success."
Lars Teutenberg can do this with credibility. In 2002, he managed to set the hour record with a human-powered vehicle (HPV): he covered 82.6 kilometres in 60 minutes. His knowledge and understanding of physics and material science made him a pioneer of aerodynamics in racing cycling, especially in time trials. At the age of 44, Lars Teutenberg qualified for the World Time Trial Championships for the first time, back then in Spain.
This shows how much the man from Cologne knows about optimisation. He has contributed this knowledge to numerous professional teams. As a professional himself, Teutenberg never rode at the highest level, but after his career he advised top teams. He was responsible for technology at T-Mobile's successor team High-Road, then looked after the racing teams for the bicycle manufacturer Scott, later becoming Performance Director at Bora-Hansgrohe and most recently with the Canyon-SRAM women's team. He now works as a product specialist at the Dutch company Scope, an engineering-driven manufacturer of carbon wheels.
Tim Torn Teutenberg: Dream job as a professional cyclist
His 21-year-old son Tim has already brought his World Tour team kit with him to the event. Yesterday he was still wearing an old BDR tracksuit as a carnival disguise, because it was 11/11 in Cologne - the only chance for him to celebrate carnival. Today, he is once again keen to make the most of his training. He has made good progress on the path that his family has paved for him.
"It always felt like I wanted to be a professional, even in primary school." - Tim Torn Teutenberg
The sport was not only visible, the family made its mark. Tim's grandfather Horst, a social worker and later head of the youth welfare office in Monheim near Düsseldorf, had made a maximum commitment as a career changer, became an A-licence coach and was regarded as a promoter of cycling in North Rhine-Westphalia for decades. Tim remembers his grandfather's phrase, which rang out again and again. "The journey is the reward", and the young man has taken a commitment from this: "If I have the feeling that the journey is right, I can be satisfied. That doesn't depend on results."
Sven Teutenberg once team-mate of Lance Armstrong
Together with his wife Elke, the now deceased grandfather put his maximum commitment into more than just his own offspring. The result was not just one, but three remarkable careers. Sven, Lars' younger brother, rode as a team-mate with Lance Armstrong at US Postal Services and brought the Tour de France to Düsseldorf with his wife Suzan in 2017. Ina-Yoko, the younger sister, is one of the legends of women's cycling; as a sprinter, she racked up victory after victory and is now the sporting director of the Lidl-Trek Women's World Tour team. It is a cycling biotope in which Lin and Tim grew up. But both children say today that they could have taken other paths, and that A-levels were compulsory. "I tried out lots of different sports. My father also sat on the sidelines when I was riding," Lin recalls of her teenage years. "But at some point, this love of sport comes when you're shown how to do it."
They travelled around the world with the children
Catrin Degenhardt felt the same way, and her enthusiasm for the sport was bubbling over the most on this Sunday afternoon. She is Lars' partner and they got together three and a half decades ago in their home town of Mettmann. "I had nothing to do with cycling, but I accompanied Lars to races as often as I could to spend time with him," says the woman, who now works full-time in a management consultancy. That wasn't possible in between, because over time she and Lars realised that life with a husband in the professional circuit and later the sporting careers of their children also demanded their energy. They travelled around the world with their young children, they lived in many places and she gained experience.
"This world of cycling brought its own social environment that was very welcoming, and I was completely immersed in it," says the 54-year-old. She was in charge of the cycling club at the comprehensive school in Cologne-Rodenkirchen - for eleven years. When the youngsters had to go to track training, she didn't just drive the children there. She sat in the stands, made contacts, organised competitions and finally became a board member of the Cologne Track Racing Working Group, which is responsible for the sporting activities on the Cologne cycling track. "When the children travelled to training by car themselves, I felt a phantom pain," recalls Degenhardt.
She talks about how she accompanied Lin to the World Championships in Doha in 2016, how she sat with her in a Belgian hotel at the 2021 World Championships and how the national coach suddenly called. They actually wanted to cheer on brother Tim, but suddenly Lin was also competing for Germany. However, the family only had one racing suit with them. "Then we just took Tim's suit and washed it, that worked too," the mum remembers.
The Teutenbergs work together like a precisely calibrated gearshift group. "Our children have a close relationship. We always wanted to convey to them that they have each other for life, and that seems to have worked," says the mum. Lin also says that it was her younger brother who always gave her the drive to stay true to the sport. When Tim accumulated successes, Lin was inspired by them. The two are in close contact. The mum also reports how sad Tim was when Lin moved out. There is no competitive relationship, on the contrary.
Mind set for the world's best
2024 will be an important year in the careers of the two Teutenberg children. Their father has coached them over the years. "I've had a lot of discussions with the people in their teams and in the national teams," says Lars Teutenberg. He is not just a material expert, he has also always picked up on trends in training theory from the professional teams. When his father took the youngsters to training groups, other parents were often surprised. Why is he coaching everyone else as well? Isn't he making life difficult for his children by doing this, because they will meet these same racers again in the race - as opponents?
"I always thought this approach was short-sighted. I wanted my children to have the best possible environment - because if they want to go far, they have to be able to cope with competition. Talent will then prevail anyway," says the father. The journey is the goal, and yet he has always had a very explicit guideline for his family's work with young talent: "I have always thought about what is currently in demand at the highest level of cycling. That's training, of course, but it also has a lot to do with mind-set," says Lars Teutenberg.
Lea Lin Teutenberg with a big goal
He still acts as their personal coach today. They have found their way to the top of the world with him. "He knows what's best for us, he knows when we need a kick up the arse and when we should relax a bit," says Lin. 2024 is a big year for both of them. "The goal is to compete on the track at the Olympics in Paris. Then we'll see," says Lin, who has established herself as a professional cyclist in a roundabout way. She has been riding for the Ceratizit-WNT road racing team since 2020, which has only recently become financially lucrative. In 2020, she also made the leap into the Bundeswehr's sports support group. "This means I can concentrate fully on the sport," she says. She had started studying industrial engineering in Cologne after graduating from high school, but the compulsory attendance didn't fit in with sport. Now she has also interrupted her management studies in Ansbach. "I can still do that after my career," says Lin Teutenberg.
Her brother is no longer thinking about alternatives. He will be part of the development team of the World Tour team Lidl-Trek in 2024. It is his chance as a strong sprinter to gain a foothold with the pros. "Being on the road in such structures brings great opportunities. It's not just about results and values, but about a process," he says. He now feels that his dream job is within reach. "Funnily enough, my aunt only found out about the deal after I'd signed," says Tim about the supposed rope-aid effect of his career move. After all, he now works in the same team as his father's sister. For Tim Torn Teutenberg, too, the Olympics in Paris is the overriding goal of the upcoming season, the goal towards which he is also training on this November day in Büttgen. "Get there first," says the European champion in the elimination race, "because the squad won't be big. But then a place in the top five would be my dream." Someone can set such specific goals when they have already travelled a long way with their family.
The Teutenberg family
Lars Teutenberg is the son of the influential cycling coach Horst and his wife Elke Teutenberg, who died in 2021. Lars Teutenberg won the International Tour of Thuringia (1998) as a professional road cyclist. In 1996, 1999 and 2002, he set world records with the Human Powered Vehicle - i.e. hourly world records achieved with human power. He lives with Catrin Degenhardt and is the brother of former Pro Tour athlete Sven Teutenberg and women's cycling legend Ina-Yoko Teutenberg.
Degenhardt and Teutenberg's children Lea Lin and Tim Torn have already won German championship titles on the track as juniors. Lin Teutenberg has been a professional with the Continental Women's Team Ceratizit-WNT since 2020. She was German champion in the omnium and team pursuit in 2022 and is currently the national title holder in the points and two-man team race. Tim Teutenberg is the current European champion in the elimination race and won four German championship titles on the track in 2022. He is a member of the Lidl-Trek junior team in 2024.
